


Living in Color

by starklyman



Category: Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, F/M, Soulmate AU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-14
Updated: 2019-02-26
Packaged: 2019-10-10 05:20:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,671
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17419832
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starklyman/pseuds/starklyman
Summary: In which you can't see the color of your soulmate's eyes until you meet them. AKA the soulmate au no one asked for.





	1. Meet Cute

**Author's Note:**

> I'm truly a sucker for soulmate au's and this is just my take. I plan on it being sort of a series of one shots throughout their relationship. At the moment I plan on going in chronological order, but that may change. In the mean time, enjoy the first chapter.

There are days when he doesn’t even notice. It’s such a subtle color and, from what he’s heard, similar to the dull grey he sees every day. A grey that he’s gotten so used to that he thinks living his whole life without seeing the color brown is not such a tragedy that some make it out to be. Because he certainly isn’t alone in this strange affliction, seeing as that brown is the most common eye color. It’s certainly better than not being able to see green or blue.

 

He used to feel bad, when he was young and unaware of his impending life of loneliness, for whatever poor soul that ended up being his soulmate. He couldn’t imagine living a life without being able to see the color blue. He wondered what they did see, on those days at the beach when the waves were the darkest, bluest blue he’d ever seen. He wondered if it was the dull grey he saw when he looked at trees or if it was different. He knew there were some, however rare they may be, that simply saw flat white.

 

He sincerely hoped that wasn’t the case for whoever was meant for him.

 

It took him years, decades, but he stopped wondering eventually. It wasn’t strange not to meet your soulmate. There were, of course, billions of people in the world and however many songs there may be proclaiming what a small world it was, it wasn’t actually.

 

He thought, at first, that it was somehow the universe’s way of punishing him, of telling him that he didn’t deserve a soulmate, despite what his friends told him. After a while of that, though, he settled for numb. He didn’t care. Or, more accurately, he forced himself not to care. There may have been those who would describe the Doctor’s existence as simply surviving, and not actually living. He preferred to ignore those people.

 

As it was, he found joy in smaller things. The students that surprised him, challenged him, made him reconsider his thought processes. His guitar in his hands, the feel of the strings under his fingertips. A new song and, even better, a new band. This is where he finds himself on what could be considered the greatest Thursday night of his entire life.

 

It’s a music store he doesn’t usually frequent, a bit too close to the university for his liking. He’s skimming the stacks, eyes peeled for anything that may be semi-decent. After a fruitless search, he lets out a sigh of frustration, pushing back from the shelves. The thing is that there was someone standing behind him. A particularly small someone.

 

When he turns around to apologize he realizes that everything he ever thought about the color brown, about not missing out on anything, was completely wrong.

 

~

 

She thinks that compared to most people, she’s rather unlucky. And while she knows she’s not alone, that there are, in actuality, lots of people who can’t see the color blue, she still finds it incredibly unfair. Even more unfair that she doesn’t get the grey that most people see when they look at the sky, but just a huge expanse of white. It made trips to the beach as a child particularly dull.

 

Despite missing out on a very, so she’s heard, beautiful color, Clara has never been especially keen on meeting her soulmate. It wasn’t that she didn’t want to or wasn’t curious, but more along the lines that it would happen when it happens. She didn’t want to live her life waiting for some mysterious stranger only to find that she wasn’t actually living.

 

So she went to university and became a teacher, she dated, she even fell in love a few times even if they both knew it wouldn’t work out in the long term. It seemed to work because most days she didn’t even think about the faceless, nameless stranger that was her soulmate.

 

It was her never-ending quest of being able to relate to her students and find common ground that brought her to this particular music shop on a random Thursday. She liked to play music during class, mostly during silent reading or writing times and she always liked to mix it up, sometimes going with the current Top 40 hits or taking it old school and introducing them to properly good music.

 

She was on her way to the register, successful in her pursuit, when she was knocked into by someone significantly larger than her. She dropped the albums in her hands, from both the impact and shock, and turned to glare at the offender.

 

Seeing his face, his eyes in particular, did nothing to quell the anger. Because by God he had the most beautiful blue-grey eyes she’d ever seen and it was his fault she had spent 28 years of her life missing out on these colors.

 

~

 

“You!” Clara cried at the same time the Doctor uttered: “Brown!”

 

She looked at him, entirely unimpressed with his very obvious statement, before turning and looking around the shop, seeing exactly what she’d been missing out on all this time. He interrupted her before she could get a really good look.

 

“Er, I’m the Doctor.”

 

“’The Doctor?’ Doctor what?”

 

He chuckled, shyly looked down at his feet and Clara felt her heart jolt which annoyed her even further because yes this man was, apparently, her soulmate, but they had only just met and she shouldn’t be feeling like this already but holy shit he was adorable.

 

“Just the Doctor. It’s, er, it’s a nickname. It’s what everyone calls me.”

 

“Nickname, huh? Well, I’m Clara Oswald. Real name.”

 

He smirked and again, Clara’s heart gave an infuriating flutter.

 

“John Smith. That’s my real name. And I must say it is incredibly nice to finally meet you, Clara Oswald.”

 

Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck. She thinks it should be illegal for him to say her name like that, but she also wants to hear it every day for the rest of her life and she knows now. She knows now that her parents, her friends, everybody else who already met their soulmate, were not over exaggerating when they said the connection, the sparks, were there immediately.

 

“You too. Although I should be angry. Still am, a bit. Do you know what it’s like to look up at the sky and just see white?”

 

The Doctor, for his part, has no idea how he got so incredibly lucky. He’s positive that Clara is the most beautiful person he’s ever seen in real life and he’s sure that there must be some kind of cosmic mistake because he’s too old for her and she’s too beautiful for him, but if it is a mistake he has no intention of trying to correct it.

 

He can’t stop staring at her, can’t stop his gaze from staring directly into those incredible, impossibly big brown eyes.

 

“I’m sorry,” he says, but he and Clara both know he isn’t sorry one bit.

 

“Well, I think you should at least buy me a cup of coffee to make up for it.”

 

“I think that’s the least I could do for you, Clara Oswald.”

 

A smile and a gentle hand holding, shared between two soulmates.

 


	2. 6 Months Later

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This chapter takes place 6 months after the first one.

He had never thought, even in his wildest dreams, that his life could change so much in the span of six months. He had never thought he could ever be this happy. He hadn’t realized that his life B.C. (Before Clara, an inside joke of how he referred to his past that always got a gentle hair stroke and a fond ‘Idiot’ out of her) had been so dull, so lifeless. He had never realized how much happiness the color brown could hold for him.

 

At the moment, he was sure she thought of him as nothing but a slightly adorable nuisance (wrong, she currently thought of him as nothing but a _very_ adorable nuisance). It was finals season and he was always coming home late, constantly held up by students asking about the exam or about the final paper, constantly reading drafts of said papers.

 

As soon as he walked through the door that day he’d trudged around the house, exhausted and dragging his feet, stripping off layers as he went. When he finally found her in the bedroom, a book in hand, he was down to nothing but his boxers and t shirt.

 

“Hello, love,” Clara chimed happily from the bed.

 

He didn’t respond and instead opted for flopping onto the bed face first, head mashed into his pillow.

 

Clara chuckled and ran a hand through his curls, laughing again when he let out a soft moan. “Rough day?” She asked.

 

He groaned again instead of answering and rolled over to her side, kept rolling until he shifted himself on top of her, his arms around her and head resting on her chest.

 

“Oi, I’m supposed to be finishing this book tonight you know. We’re gonna start our unit on it soon and I still need to prepare lesson plans.”

 

He lifted his head to look her in the eye. “Aren’t I more important than some silly book?”

 

She rolled her eyes, but couldn’t help the corners of her mouth from lifting into a smile. She gripped his hair gently, but firmly and lifted his head a bit more. “Most of the time, yes. Tonight? Not so much.”

 

He began pouting immediately and as hard as she tried, Clara could never resist his dumb, adorable pouting face. She pressed her lips to his, their mouths moving languidly against one another’s, both too tired and too inclined not to move to take the kiss further.

 

When they broke apart he shifted and pressed his face into her neck, pressing soft, wet kisses there, doing an apt job of distracting her.

 

“I missed you,” he murmured. His mouth continued to move against her neck, sucking gently in one place, both knowing it would leave a mark, both knowing Clara would later scold him for it while he would be incorrigibly smug and neither quite caring about it at the moment.

 

“You saw me this morning, daft old man.”

 

“Yeah, but it felt a lot longer than that. Stupid students.”

 

She laughed and pressed a quick, gentle kiss to his hair. “You love your students. You know you do.”

 

“Not during finals, I don’t.”

 

After a few more minutes of trying to read her book and subsequently being distracted by the Doctor’s, admittedly talented, tongue, she gave up and threw the book on her night stand. She wrapped both arms around his narrow frame and buried her nose in his hair, inhaling his scent, one that had always drawn her in since the beginning.

 

He basked in her warmth, in her soft breaths he felt at the top of his head, in the way her thumbs stroked his sides. He never felt more right, more at home, than when he was in her arms. He never wanted to leave, never wanted to be away from her. He no longer believed the universe made a mistake. She was perfect for him, in every way, and as long as he lived he would always keep her safe and he would never let her go.

 

“Clara.” He said it softly, soft enough that she almost missed it.

 

“Hm?”

 

“I love you.” She didn’t know why those three words affected her so much. They had said them to each other often enough, and soon after they had met. It was normal for soulmates, to move quickly in their relationship. The majority of bonded couples were actually married within months. And yet, Clara still felt butterflies every time he touched her, kissed her, told her he loved her.

 

She clutched him to her tighter, gripped his hair harder. It overwhelmed her, sometimes, how much she loved this man. One minute he was so smart it made her head spin and the next he was so clueless she had to spell everything out for him. He made her laugh, more than anyone ever had and was the gentlest, kindest soul she’d ever known. Fuck, she loved him so much.

 

“I love you, too.” Another gentle kiss to the top of his head.

 

“Hey, Clara?”

 

“Yeah?”

 

“Marry me.”

 

She froze, her hand stilling in his hair.

 

“What did you just say?”

 

“Well, I think I just asked you to marry me. It’s about time don’t you think?”

 

She moved and pushed him off her so that he was sitting up and facing her.

 

“You can’t just… you can’t just do things like that!” She nearly yelled, pushing him hard enough so that he nearly fell over backwards.

 

“Oi! You know women aren’t supposed to get so mad when a guy asks them to marry him.”

 

“Well most guys plan it out! You know, go somewhere nice, have the waiter hide the ring in the fucking champagne. _Have_ a ring! I swear you-"

 

Her rant was cut short by the Doctor reaching over and taking something out of his night stand drawer. A small velvet box, placed open on her knee and containing the most beautiful ring she’d ever seen. The silver of the band looping around the three stones in a beautiful pattern.

 

“Oh… you are a bastard!”

 

“What now? I thought you would be happy about this!”

 

“I am, I am!” She quickly took the ring out of its box and slid it onto her finger. “Oh, God. It’s beautiful, it’s so beautiful.”

 

There were tears in her eyes and she couldn’t speak, couldn’t form coherent sentences. She was surprised and she wasn’t. She knew, logically, that it was only a matter of time. Why wait when you found your perfect match? But she certainly wasn’t expecting this to happen tonight, and certainly not in the way it had ended up happening.

 

She sat, unable to take her eyes off the ring as he gently pushed a strand of her hair behind her ear.

 

“Clara Oswald. You are, quite literally, my other half. You are my reason for being, the brightest light in my life. I would destroy the entire universe if it meant keeping you safe. Will you marry me?”

 

By this point, the tears were flowing non-stop. He could be an idiot sometimes, when it came to words, but he never seemed to be an idiot when it came to words about her. He always knew exactly what to say and she hated him for it, but she loved him even more for it.

 

“Yes,” she whispered. “Yes, you daft man, of course I’ll marry you.” She leaned forward, took his face between her hands and kissed him firmly.

 

Later, when their clothes are scattered around the room and she’s lying against his chest, his heartbeat lulling her to sleep, she lifts her head up, just enough to look into his eyes.

 

“When did you get it?” She asked, lifting her left hand and indicating the ring.

 

He looked at her, thoughtful for a moment before answering. “The first time we went out for coffee. After you went back home I went to the shop.”

 

She stared at him, dumbfounded. “That was the first day we met.”

 

“You’re my soulmate, Clara. Literally. I found you and there was no way in hell I was ever going to let you go after that.”

 

She is struck, suddenly, with how lucky she is. She had never been sure she would ever find the man lying underneath her and yet, here they were. Two beings tangled together with no intentions of ever separating.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, comments are appreciated. Catch me over on tumblr @ starklyman


	3. Slice of Heaven

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A quiet moment between two parents.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I really had planned on going in chronological order for the most part but I couldn’t get this scene out of my head. I’m not sure about this one tbh it was much better in my head but here you go.

A night out with her friends had been exactly what Clara needed. Stress and busyness had practically taken over her life the past few months and although she wouldn’t trade it for anything, a night of fun and dancing had been an extreme relief.

 

She was surprised, however, by not being met at the door when she came back. Although it was later than usual, it wasn’t late enough for the Doctor to be asleep and greeting her at the front door with a kiss was one of his favorite things to do.

 

She wandered the house, tipsy enough to be craving his touch, but when she finally found him her heart swelled.

 

He had taken it upon himself to be the one to get up with their two month old every time he woke up throughout the night, content to let Clara sleep unless he was hungry and it seemed to be taking its toll on him. His relationship with his own father was strained to say the least and he seemed to be doing everything in his power to not let that carry over with his own child.

 

He stood in the middle of the nursery, one hand supporting Henry’s bottom and the other cradling his head to his chest. He walked slowly around the room, rocking the boy gently and humming to him. She watched him as he stopped when Henry had finally fallen asleep and lowered his own head so that his cheek rested on top of Henry’s head, eyelids drooping. She took a picture, quickly setting it as the background picture on her phone before walking into the room.

 

“Hey,” she murmured, sliding a hand over his should blades until her arm was around him. He perked up and lifted his head, smiling sleepily at her.

 

“I didn’t hear you come in. How was it?”

 

“It was good. Now, come on. Let’s get the two of you to bed.”

 

She carefully extracted Henry from his arms and placed a quick kiss to the top of his head before setting him down in his crib.

 

She grabbed the Doctor’s hand and led him from the nursery into their own bedroom. She left him to get changed as she went through her nightly routine, made longer tonight by the extra makeup she was wearing. When she finally left the bathroom she found him laying on top of the covers, clad only in boxers and his clothes scattered around the room. She rolled her eyes with a smile and nudged him as she sat on the bed.

 

“I’ll get up with him tonight. You need to sleep.”

 

He immediately began to protest, sitting up and frowning at her.

 

“You don’t need-“

 

“Shush, you,” she said and reached a hand over to run through his hair. “You need a good night’s sleep. You’re exhausted, I can tell. Don’t even try to deny it.”

 

He continued to frown at her, but the look on her face made it clear she wasn’t to be argued with.

 

“Fine.”

 

As soon as they were under the covers he scooted himself closer to her, until he was curled around her, head lying on her shoulder. She smiled at him, shifting until she had an arm around him, hand playing with the dark curls at the back of his neck. He sighed contentedly and snuggled closer to her. His sleepy self was by far her favorite. Soft and clingy and affectionate, not that he wasn’t those things any other time, but it was more pronounced when he was like this and it made her glad every single day that he was her soulmate.

 

They fell asleep tangled together and she wouldn’t trade it for anything.

Henry wakes her up about two and a half hours after she’s fallen asleep. She quickly lowers the volume of the baby monitor and carefully extracts herself from the Doctor’s grip.

 

He quiets down when he sees her enter the room, but starts back up almost immediately. She picks him up out of his crib, murmurs to him while pacing the length of the room. He stops crying, but begins to tug clumsily at the collar of her shirt and she makes her way to the rocking chair in the corner of the room.

 

The Doctor walks in about ten minutes later, Henry is still suckling away and she looks at him in disapproval.

 

“You’re supposed to be sleeping,” she berates.

 

“Can’t sleep when you’re not there.” His hair is in complete disarray, he rubs sleepily at his eye and the picture he makes is so unbearably adorable that she can’t help but smile at him.

 

When he realizes he’s not in trouble he makes his way over to her, first pressing a kiss to the back of Henry’s head then a kiss to Clara’s temple. He kneels next to the chair and rests his head on Clara’s shoulder, both of them watching their son, still in awe that they created this tiny, adorable life.

 

“He’s perfect,” the Doctor whispers, words muffled slightly by Clara’s shoulder.

 

Clara runs a finger tip down Henry’s cheek. “Yeah, he is.”

 

After a few more moments, Henry falls back asleep, face falling away from Clara’s breast. The Doctor puts him back in his crib and he and Clara make their way back to the bedroom.

 

“Stay in bed next time, got it?”

 

They’re both on their sides, Clara pressed against his back, her chin hooked on his shoulder.

 

He chuckles. “Yes, Boss.”

 

Henry wakes up two more times throughout the night and the Doctor actually sleeps through both of them. When they both wake up, the Doctor is lying on top of Clara, using her chest as a pillow.

 

The sunlight filters through the window and lights his hair up and his eyes shine as he smiles dopily at her.

 

“Hello,” he says. She laughs and runs her fingers through his hair, scratches his scalp and grins as he lets out an appreciative moan.

 

She tilts his chin up and presses a kiss to his lips. “I kinda love you, you know.”

 

“That’s good because you’re kind of stuck with me.”

 

Another laugh escapes her and she kisses him even longer. “Thank God for that.”

 

They’re interrupted minutes later by Henry’s nonsensical blabber and laughter and neither one of them are disappointed by this in the slightest.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, comments are appreciated. Tumblr is starklyman


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